Eala ousts defending champ Fernandez in DC

Alexandra Eala ousted the defending Mubadala DC Open champion, No. 7 seed Leylah Fernandez, with a 6-2, 7-6 (1) victory to advance to the quarterfinals in Washington.

The Filipina competitor dropped five straight games to fall into a 5-1 second-set hole before responding with five straight game wins and then a dominant tiebreaker showing against her Canadian opponent where she won the final four points.

Third-seeded Naomi Osaka of Japan didn’t fall into the same trap, reaching the DC quarterfinals for the first time after American Ashlyn Krueger retired due to a right ankle injury while trailing ?6-3, 3-1.

Osaka hit just 47% of her first serves and won just 54.5% of her first-serve points but covered for that by winning 18 of 25 (72%) second-serve points and never facing a break point.

Osaka will face Elisabetta Coccioretto for a semifinal spot after the Italian outlasted No. 8 seed Emma Navarro for a 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 triumph. Russia’s Liudmila Samsonova also reached the quarterfinals with a 6-2, 6-2 defeat of China’s Xinyu Wang.

The upsets continued in second-round action, with No. 4 seed Zeynep Sonmez of Turkey and No. ?5 seed Camila Osorio of Colombia getting knocked off, leaving just one top-five seed left standing at the Tennessee tournament.

Sonmez jumped ahead before taking a 3-6, 7-5, 7-5 defeat against the U.S.’s Elvina Kalieva. Sonmez won just 50% of her service points and faced a staggering 18 break-point chances, ?only managing to save 10 of them, and getting broken in the final game of both the second and third sets.